Clothing in the Victorian
times

Methods of clothing production and distribution varied greatly
over the course of Victoria's long reign.

In 1837, cloth was manufactured in the mill towns of northern
England, Scotland, and Ireland. But clothing was generally
custom-made by seamstresses, milliners, tailors, hatters, glovers,
corsetiers, and many other specialized tradespeople, who served a
local clientele in small shops. Families who could not afford to
patronize specialists, made their own clothing, or bought and
modified used clothing.

By 1907, clothing was increasingly factory-made and sold in
large, fixed price department stores. Custom sewing and home sewing
were still significant, but on the decline.

New machinery and materials changed clothing in many ways.

The introduction of the lock-stitch sewing machine in mid-century simplified
both home and boutique dressmaking, and enabled a fashion for
lavish application of trim that would have been prohibitively
time-consuming if done by hand. Lace machinery made lace at a fraction of the cost
of the old, laborious methods.

New materials from far-flung British colonies gave rise to new
types of clothing (such as rubber making gumboots and mackintoshes possible).
Chemists developed new,
cheap, bright dyes that displaced
the old animal or vegetable dyes.

Home
décor

Home decor started spare, veered into the elaborately draped and
decorated style we today regard as Victorian, then embraced the
retro-chic of William Morris as well as
pseudo-Japonaiserie.

Charles
Eastlake's Hints on Household Tastes in Furniture,
Upholstery and other Details (1868) attempted to educate the
middle class on the proper artistic decoration of homes, which
required "taste" rather than lavish expenditure.

Contemporary stereotypes

Victorian
prudery

"The proper length for little girls' skirts at various ages", from
Harper's
Bazaar, showing an 1868 idea of how the hemline should
descend towards the ankle as a girl got older

For most, the Victorian period is still a by-word for sexual
repression. Men's clothing is seen as formal and stiff, women's as
fussy and over-done. Clothing covered the entire body, we are told,
and even the glimpse of an ankle was scandalous. Critics contend
that corsets constricted women's bodies and women's lives. Homes
are described as gloomy, dark, cluttered with massive and
over-ornate furniture and proliferating bric-a-brac. Myth has it that even piano
legs were scandalous, and covered with tiny pantalettes.

Of course, much of this is untrue, or a gross exaggeration.
Men's formal clothing may have been less colorful than it was in
the previous century, but brilliant waistcoats and cummerbunds provided a touch of color, and
smoking
jackets and dressing gowns
were often of rich Oriental brocades. Corsets stressed a woman's sexuality,
exaggerating hips and bust by contrast with a tiny waist. Women's
ball gowns bared the
shoulders and the tops of the breasts. The tight-fitting jersey
dresses of the 1880s may have covered the body, but they left
little to the imagination.

Home furnishing was not necessarily ornate or overstuffed.
However, those who could afford lavish draperies and expensive
ornaments, and wanted to display their wealth, would often do so.
Since the Victorian era was one of extreme social mobility, there
were ever more nouveaux
riches making a rich show.

The items used in decoration may also have been darker and
heavier than those used today, simply as a matter of practicality.
London was noisy and its air was full of soot from countless coal fires. Hence those who
could afford it draped their windows in heavy, sound-muffling
curtains, and chose colors that didn't show soot quickly. When all
washing was done by hand, curtains were not washed as frequently as
they might be today.

There is no actual evidence that piano legs were considered scandalous. Pianos and
tables were often draped with shawls or cloths—but if the shawls hid anything,
it was the cheapness of the furniture. There are references to
lower-middle-class families covering up their pine tables rather than show that they couldn't
afford mahogany. The piano
leg story seems to have originated in Captain Frederick
Marryat's 1839 book, Diary in America, as a satirical
comment on American prissiness.

Victorian manners, however, may have been as strict as
imagined—on the surface. One simply did not speak publicly about
sex, childbirth, and such matters, at least in the respectable
middle and upper classes. However, as is well known, discretion
covered a multitude of sins. Prostitution flourished. Upper-class men
and women indulged in adulterous liaisons.

Victorian
chic

Some people now look back on the Victorian era with wistful
nostalgia. Historians would say that this is as much a distortion
of the real history as the stereotypes emphasizing Victorian
repression and prudery.

Also notable is a contemporary counter-cultural trend called steampunk. Those who dress
steampunk often wear Victorian-style clothing that has been
"tweaked" in edgy ways: tattered, distorted, melded with Goth
fashion, Punk,
and Rivethead styles.
Another example of Victorian fashion being incorporated into a
contemporary style is the Goth Lolita culture.